"In Montenegro on July 13th, there were around 170,000 tourists, which is 7.0 percent more than on the same day last year, and cumulatively we have, statistically processed for five months, a serious growth of almost 22 percent. The pre-season was very good, and the season is going well and we have serious announcements for encouragement, so in principle we have achieved our primary goal, which is the extension of the season, "Radulovic said in a statement for Tanjug.
As he says, the season has been prolonged over the past three months with the help of serious and large tour operators through which most of the major hotels operate, so they had the first guests in mid-May, while the last groups will be staying in the last decade of October.
"We achieved the quota months i.e. the days per year that we have set with our strategy," the Minister of Tourism said.
According to Radulovic, the foreign exchange inflow in the first five months rose roughly by eight percent compared to the last year.
"The structure of guests is changing. All the enlargements we have are actually guests for the West-European market, while the number of traditional guests from the neighboring areas and Russia is somewhere on the same level - a slight increase is in question, "he adds.
Pavle Radulović
At this point, Radulovic adds, a quarter of the tourists in Montenegro are guests from the neighboring areas, the second one is from the Russian market, or from the markets of the former Soviet Union countries. Approximately one third of guests are from the European Union, or Western Europe, while the rest are guests are from the distant destinations, such as China and Arab countries.
"There is a serious increase here, and there are more and more guests from these countries", he emphasizes.
He believes that Montenegro will "definitely overcome a billion euros of tourism inflows in 2018, if we keep this growth by eight percent, which would be a spectacular result."
Last year we've already exceeded the results in 1987 which was marked as a record year, and we are moving forward slowly to reach a new record," he said.According to Radulovic, the influx of tourism in Montenegro's gross domestic product is now 23%, and it is planned to reach up to 30 percent in 2030 with the growth rate that it is currently recorded."It's very ungrateful to talk about the number of beds we have, because it would sound like boasting. I'm just going to say that we have opened seven four-star and five-star hotels from the beginning of the year to this day, with two thousand beds and employed thousand people. By the end of this season we will open 11 hotels in that category in total, and that's why I said that the structure of guests is changing, "he says.As far as camps are concerned, which have long existed on the Montenegrin coast and now they are only to be found on a few specific locations, Radulovic points out that the plan is to set up a serious area for the development of modern camps or glamping."In Montenegro, the Minister of Urbanism, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Tourism are all in one, and not without a good reason. We have reduced the construction area on the coast from 15.3 percent to the current 9.3 percent. We have reduced the areas in which it is possible to build, but we have decided that those areas in which construction is possible is valued in the right way. On the Montenegrin coast there is an incredible development of many foreign investments and all are aimed towards the tourism, "Radulović said.
Text by CdM, on July 31st 2018, read more at CdM
